First Impressions – Sony Ericsson K800i Phone

UPDATE 11 Sept 2007.?? I noticed that quite a few people have been reading this review so I thought it is important that I provide this update.?? I no longer use this phone – it’s unusable because the the little joystick became increasingly sensitive to the point where it is impossible to select any thing from the menu.?? This started happening after only a month of use.?? Reading elsewhere this seems to be a common problem – AVOID. END OF UPDATE

With all the recent short trips I have been taking recently, I had been using my Nokia 6230i to take photographs. It’s relatively basic camera was not really up to the task so I had three options:

Take my main Camera, Lumix DMC-FZ30, but that’s far to big too lug around on these trips

Buy a second, pocket size camera, but then I still end up carrying two devices.

Get a phone with a proper camera.

So option 3 it was, and from a short list of two, 3 megapixel camera phones, I choose the Sony Ericsson K800i over the Samsung D900.

As a camera, it has met all my expectations. its 3.2 megapixels and has a proper flash (Well it’s better than other camera phones that just use an LED).
It has a dedicated button for the shutter and an image stabiliser too. It had it’s first outing on my trip to the Science Museum (see previous post).

As a phone, its, well, OK. I have a few niggles:

The C button, the one that “Cancels” things in other phones, acts as a DELETE key in many situations – I keep nearly deleting contacts.

The Profiles don’t change automatically, e.g. when I put it in the dock, I’d expect it to change to a Dock profile

You can’t disable the power saving – I’d like the screen to stay ON which it’s charging in the dock.

There is no silent setting for the camera shutter.

No Mac OS X Software

I can only update firmware using a Windows PC, or, over the phone using the relatively expensive internet access.